


What Survives

by ljs



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen, post "Blood Moon"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-1.02, "Blood Moon"</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>“If this guy’s an Oxford professor, he’s got to have some publications somewhere,” Luke says. “’Cause he’s kind of young to hold a professorship, my cousin says you have to be, y’know, famous, it’s not like here.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	What Survives

“If this guy’s an Oxford professor, he’s got to have some publications somewhere,” Luke says. “’Cause he’s kind of young to hold a professorship, my cousin says you have to be, y’know, famous, it’s not like here.”

Abbie sits at her desk and prays, in order, for patience not to smack her ex and for Crane not to amble out of the coffee room –

Too late. He’s here, and he’s heard.

With a toss of his head that makes his stupid ponytail dance, he says in his most annoying tone, “Of course I wasn’t a professor. I’d used the common expression for my place there, I know how unfamiliar Americans are with our academic ranks.”

“So what are you?” Luke says.

Behind them, Captain Irving strolls out. He nods at Abbie – which makes her drop back down in her desk chair, hunching her shoulders – and says, “Yes. What are you, Crane?”

Her crazy person’s not fazed. On some level she’s surprised at his calm, but he says with only the merest check, “Fellow of Queen’s College. Or I was until I came to America, but… my current professional status is unclear.”

“You published?”

“Yes,” Crane says, and now Abbie sees something flickering, old and deep, in those blue eyes. “A book under my own name, and other essays…well, using a nom de plume. The latter works of course do not make any part of my somewhat meager scholarly corpus.”

“A blogger, huh?” Luke guesses. 

Crane blinks. She hasn’t gotten to the internet yet in her explanations of the modern world.

And she has to save him before this goes even deeper in the shit-weeds. “Okay, Luke. Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

This would have no effect, except Captain Irving says, “I think you’re right, Lieutenant,” and Luke has no choice but to head off. She knows the sulky tightness in his shoulders – he may make trouble later – but she can breathe now.

Except – Crane carefully places the mug of coffee she’d forgotten on her desk, then says, “’Blogger’?”

“I’ll explain later.”

But Irving’s there. “If you’ve published a book, Crane, we should be able to find it.”

“How?” Crane says, and that flicker in his eyes returns, changes. Abbie has been learning his responses, almost without meaning to, and this is sadness. Sometimes she forgets, thanks to his spluttering petulance or open engagement with occult madness or babbling about freaking doughnut holes, that he’s cut off from all he knew. “Or rather, will you be willing to wait until a letter can be sent to the Bodleian and a reply received regarding what discarded work they might find in their archives?”

“I don’t think we need to wait that long,” the captain says dryly. To Abbie: “A little surfing is in order, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” she says. She hadn’t thought of it before, somehow, but there might be a record….  
“Yes!”

Her fingers are clicking over the keys even before her affirmative fades in the clatter of the station.

“What are you doing?” Crane says, and comes to hover at her shoulder. He _is_ like a crane, all drooping long neck and big beak, except no bird’s ever smelled so nice, like good hotel soap and applewood smoke. She can feel his body-heat at her back, feel warmth along her spine.

She types faster. “Let’s try something like the Harvard Library catalog,” she says, and Google gives her the link as she finishes her sentences.

Crane’s hands come to her shoulders and tighten. She bets he can give great neck-rubs, she can’t think of that right now, apocalypse and search engines, go –

 _Ichabod Crane_ , she types. 

Two records pop up. One, a book under his name, published in 1770: _Freedom and the Natural Rights of Citizens_. Two, a collection of Revolutionary-era political pamphlets written by “Common Sense Out of Place,” with the annotation “attributed to Ichabod Crane.” This book was published after he would have…disappeared.

“They’re here,” he says, an odd little dry sound, and his fingers loosen. “They survived.”

“Guess they did. Like you,” Irving says. She hadn’t noticed him coming around the desk. 

But Crane’s not paying attention. He’s all but bumping her out of her chair – damn, his hip is bony, she needs to fatten the boy up -- so he can slide in, so he can be closer to this record of who he was and what he did. He touches the keyboard – “Does this machine collect these books, or is this indeed a catalog?”

“Check Project Gutenberg,” Irving says softly.

It’s an awkward angle, but she does, and yep, there’s _Freedom and the Natural Rights of Citizens_. Uploaded just last year. 

She puts her hand over Crane’s, and together they click. There it comes, black letters on a white screen. 

“It survived,” he says again, and his voice no longer sounds dry. “O wonders!” Then he whips around so that his face is close to hers, so that the glitter of those blue eyes fixes her gaze. “Does this mean my book’s still read? Lieutenant?”

She represses an urge to kiss him, which, what the hell is wrong with her thinking these things, anyway – “ _Somebody_ had to read it to put it on the ‘net. So yeah.”

His smile is glowing, and the scent of applewood smoke rises. “Show me how to work this, please?”

“Just scroll down and up,” she says, leaning over and showing him.

Their fingers lock again. She somehow doesn’t let go even as she stands back up and collects her coffee with her free hand. 

For fifteen minutes, she feels the past and the present under her hand, and she doesn’t worry about the future.


End file.
